Hello everyone,
It has been some time, since the last post. Rest assured, that easyCIS is still alive and under development. In fact, there has been so many of new functions and under the hood technology changes that I've come to decide not to release any more changes into 1.0 branch and wait with the release for a brand new 2.0 version. It is still some time untill the release, but most of the features are already implemented.
So what those changes will be?
Plugin architecture
easyCIS began using Ninject as DI framework and started utilizing its capabilities for loading modules to build a plugin architecture. It will be possible to write C# plugins with build tasks or source control access and just drop it into installation to start using it. No configuration needed.
Current easyCIS features are build as a plugin as well
New web
Web application has been moved to MVC 3 with Razor view engine. This is in no way only a cosmetic change, because a fresh good design allows much more flexibility in implementing features and greatly improves implementation speed. In regards to plugin architecture, web application is dynamically loading and displaying build tasks configuration. This allows for plugin developlent in separate assembly or several assemblies.
easyCIS will feature user groups and rights management. Feature much needed in larger companies with many teams and many projects. This was somewhat neglected before, but 2.0 will be fully prepared even for not so open environments :)
Users and groups management
Internaly, data access layer has moved from linq to sql to entities framework 4.2 with code first POCO entities, no code tracking proxies and T4 autogenerated CRUD repositories. This is just FYI, that easyCIS is using good and robust design with shiny new technology :)
With the improved data access and better web platform I've been able to implement some better editors and dialog windows. For example in 1.0 order to select a project reference (dependent project) you had to click on a listbox with all projects, then select project from popup listbox and again (after form postback) enter a directory to put reference integration output into. In 2.0 there is a modal editor for selecting project references. After it is confirmed, ajax call will update reference directories textboxes. Overall it is much more intuitive now.
Major feature that will improve usability with say 100+ projects is project dashboard that will replace the simple table with all projects. But more of that later, because this is still a feature on a TODO list.